From Around The Web

I think they’ve got better as their voting pool has grown over the years. In the early days they seemed particularly keen to punish big budget horror that was ahead of its time. As a horror fan that soundtrack is one of the most original and haunting ever written.

The Razzies tend to punish commercial flops and what critics hate at the time. The Shining was not well received by critics and the Thing bombed with both critics and audiences. The general consensus being that Kubrick had made a very predictable ghost story and that Carpenter’s film besmirched the good name of a classic.

The Razzies have only really got better because films are more production line at the moment. The gap between good and bad is smaller and thus the results are usually too mundane to generate any kind of committed fan base.

I think the Razzies get it right most of the time – no one’s going to be looking at Catwoman, the Transformers series or Adam Sandler comedies in a decade and re-evaluate them as classics – but they seem to have a blind spot for innovative horror: The Blair Witch Project was also nominated in 2000.

It depends what you mean by a classic and what you mean by re-evaluate. In the case of low comedy like Adam Sandler it’s fan driven. No one thought things like The Carry On films or Porkies would be considered classics either. Eventually populism beats criticism every time and in an age when fans communicate with each other online you get expertise in subgenre. So to Adam Sandler fans there are already Adam Sandler classics. The fact that a bunch of critics don’t like them will be outweighed by Amazon reviews, fan sites and internet discussions. Pluralism renders the professional critic more or less meaningless.

As for Transformers it’s an age thing. Most of the people who hate Transformers are, like myself, Thirtyomething and grew up with the cartoons. But kids who grew up with the films will get just as nostalgic and see things differently. A truly serious critic from the 6Os, 70s or early 80s wouldn’t see much difference between the Dark Knight or Transformer or even Battleship. They would go on about The Bicycle Thief or Bergman and Tarkovsky and maybe briefly nod at Kubrick, Hitchcock and Spielberg

At no point in my post did I say anything about critics other than to suggest that in popular culture and in pluralist age they are mostly irrelevant. Little Nicky will still be popular in 20 years time. I doubt critics will talk about The Avengers, the Amazing Spider man or Iron Man either. Critics at least serious ones will actually be talking about Iranian cinema and various other stuff. Again it also depends on what you mean by a critic. Plenty of populist critics like little Nicky. Critics were almost universally disparaging about 80s action films and Stallone in particular. He’s outlived them as did the Thing.
I’m a huge slasher film fan. Critics didn’t and don’t see My Bloody Valentine as a classic either. Pop culture is fan driven and it’s history becomes specialised like that of any art. The broad stroke of critics is a Sunday supplement at best.

What was so great about the Blair Witch project? I doubt anybody’s gonna look at that in a decade and think it’s a classic. It’s not. And not all Adam Sandler films are bad. Little Nicky was cool. You wanna look at somebody who makes terrible comedies? Look no further than Will Farrell.

It had a huge impact and changed horror cinema forever. Watching it at home on DVD is completely different to seeing it theatrically with no expectations. It’s true, it doesn’t work in all environments, so that is a flaw, but when innovation and originality is punished then it’s a sad time for cinema.

“It had a huge impact and changed horror cinema forever. Watching it at home on DVD is completely different to seeing it theatrically with no expectations. It’s true, it doesn’t work in all environments, so that is a flaw, but when innovation and originality is punished then it’s a sad time for cinema.”

I feel that way about Avatar. Without full screen, high def 3D, it’s just kind of boring.

The reasons that TBWP did so well was that it was the first film to really use internet to publicize the movie and what they did with their internet campaign was to make people think that it actually was a documentary: people thought they were seeing something real.

Bill Paxton is the only actor to be killed by a Terminator, a Predator, and an Alien. Game over indeed.

Actually that is not correct,
AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)
With the filming of this movie Lance Henriksen became the second actor to be attacked and/or killed by an Alien, A Predator and The Terminator. Bill Paxton was the first.

Good call but was he killed by an alien? He is still alive at the end of Aliens and asks to be suicided at Ripley’s hands in Alien 3. …Then again maybe I’m being too technical on that, I suppose he did die as a result of injuries.

He was decomisioned by ripley as he,s an android he isnt dead(can robots die ?) just turned off the alien damaged him then the crash damaged him more rendering him totally imobile(he was working fine in 2 on the ship the magic egg did the rest)
what was it he said”i can remodelled but ill never be the same ”
for all we know weyland picked him out of the garbage for his knowledge as he probly new he,d have been wiped/remodelled and sent off to serve on masters sail barge
its like saying the alien killed newt and hicks by causing the crash
which to some degree is true. we just need bien to be offed by a predator then we have 2 more candidates who will only get there on a serious technical challenge if you can prove bishop was killed by an alien

The Thing (1982) is still my favourite creature feature of all time. I love the soundtrack, and yes it is a surprise that it was ill-received in its time. I saw it when it was released in the cinema, and it inspired me to become a filmmaker myself.